Mo Penner had arrived in Fiskar Bay in a beaten-up old Ford Fiesta driven by her boyfriend, Keenan. They had followed Roxanne’s car to Stella Magnusson’s place. Now they wandered from room to room, fingering the furniture, checking out the appliances, the rows of glasses and dishes on shelves. The big piano impressed them. So did the Apple TV. And the well-stocked wine rack.
“How big is it?” Mo looked out the window.
“Eighty-six acres, I’ve been told,” Roxanne replied.
“So how far does it go?”
“I’m not sure. Those trees are at the property line on the west side.” Roxanne pointed in the direction of the Andreychuk farm. “It goes way back from there.”
“Cool house,” said Keenan. He was as pierced and studded as Mo. His dark head was shaved. He sported a stubbly beard and a tattoo could be seen creeping up from the back of his neck onto the base of his skull. He dressed similarly to Mo, except his coat was of ancient, worn tweed. They had not removed their outerwear. The heat in Stella’s house was turned down as low as possible to prevent the pipes from freezing. It was cold enough that you could see your breath when you spoke.
Back at the office, Mo had pulled a birth certificate out of a pocket and waved it under Roxanne’s nose.
“It’s a copy. I’ve got mine at home. You can have this one. Look what she called me. Ariel Star Magnusson. And they changed my name to Maureen Penner. How boring is that? I thought I’d start calling myself Star Magnusson but Keenan says he likes Mo, says it suits me. Maybe I’ll change it to Mo Magnusson. I kinda like the sound of that.”
She’d been born in Brandon, Manitoba, twenty-nine years ago. Her mother was named on the certificate as Stella Louise Magnusson. Her father was not named. Stella must have been eighteen. How had she ended up in Brandon?
“You were adopted?” Roxanne asked.
“Yeah. Two weeks old, my mom says. I grew up in Winkler, a good Mennonite girl.”
Winkler lay in a part of Manitoba known as the Bible Belt, largely settled by people of the Mennonite faith. They practised pacifism, which caused them to migrate every time armed conflict arose in the country where they lived. They spoke a form of Low German, were religious conservatives, but were also shrewd and successful prairie farmers. The towns where many of them now lived had flourished. Mo Penner did not look at all Mennonite but the hair without the dye, the face minus the decorative metal, were all Stella’s.
“Did you get in touch with her?”
“Tried. I phoned at first. Left a message. She didn’t reply. So then I wrote her a letter. She wrote back. Said she’d never wanted kids, still didn’t. Wanted me to leave her alone. So I did. No big deal.”
“Do you have a copy of the letter?”
“Not on me. I can get it. It’s in Winnipeg.” If Mo had a birth certificate and a letter from Stella acknowledging that she was her child, she probably really was who she said she was. So when she had said she wanted to see Stella’s house, Roxanne had agreed to take her. She was also curious to see how Mo would react.
“Can I take photographs?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s still related to a crime and it isn’t yours,” said Roxanne. It wasn’t yet, but who else was there to inherit? “You know Stella’s parents are still alive? They live in Victoria. He’s got dementia.”
“Oh. Well, won’t matter that he’s forgotten me then, will it.”
“I can give you their address.”
“Sure.” Maybe Mo’s grandmother would like to know about her granddaughter after all these years, even if she hadn’t wanted to stay in touch with Stella. Mo was still busy scanning each room and its contents with those blue eyes, making an inventory in her head.
“Where’s her computer?”
“She had a laptop and an iPad. They’re missing. So is her cellphone. Her work computers are with us, in Winnipeg. They’ll be returned.”
“So who lived here before?”
“Two old uncles. Bachelors. There was no one else to leave it to.”
“And now there’s just me.”
“Maybe.” They were in the hallway lined with photographs. Keenan was picking out a tune on the piano. He wasn’t bad.
“Hey, babe!” he called. “Can we keep this thing?”
“There’s no will, right?” Mo was checking out the photographs.
Roxanne stared at her. “How did you know?”
Mo laughed. Her tongue was studded. “Figured it out! See this one?” She was focused on an old black and white photo in a black frame. “That’s my mom, right? Must be younger than me in it. Think I look like her?”
The photograph was the one Roxanne had seen before, from the years when Stella was still in her teens, in the Winnipeg band. She and Mo certainly looked alike. Keenan came up behind them and looked over Mo’s shoulder.
“Sure do,” he said. “She was great looking, your mom, eh? Just like you.” He peered closer at the photograph. “Hey, isn’t that the Isbister guy there, playing the bass?”
Mo elbowed him. Too late.
“Leo Isbister?” The guy in the picture had long hair and was a lot leaner, but the smile was unmistakably Leo’s. “You know him?”
Mo stared back at Roxanne. The blue eyes had gone a shade darker.
“I’m taking you back to the office, Maureen. We need to talk some more.”
Margo opened her door. Sasha stood on the doorstep, a flat plastic container held in both hands. She was wearing a long raccoon coat that she’d picked up at a thrift store and a brown, fur-lined hat with ear flaps that made her look remarkably like her hound, Lenny. Large round sunglasses covered her eyes.
“Oatmeal cookies. Peace offering.”
Margo regarded her from the doorway, then opened the door wider. “Oh, come on in. I’ll make a pot of tea.”
“Coffee would be better.”
“Hung-over? Serves you right.”
Sasha stepped out of her boots, reached into her pocket, pulled out well-worn sheepskin slippers and hung her coat up in a closet. She patted Bob the dog. “At least Bob’s glad to see me.”
“He knows you’ve brought cookies. Are you keeping those sunglasses on?” Margo poured coffee beans into a grinder.
“If we’re sitting at the window, like usual, yes.”
“You don’t sound very apologetic.”
“And listen to you, all judgmental, as usual.” Margo had been raised Presbyterian, Sasha had gone to synagogue. Neither now attended, but it was something they enjoyed sparring about. “Wasn’t so hung-over I couldn’t bake. I took a batch of these over to Phyllis.”
“And how’s she doing?” Margo brewed the coffee.
“She’s worse than me. Didn’t drink much when she was married to the health nut so she’s out of practice.” Margo smiled in spite of herself. She put mugs on the table.
“The coffee’s going to be strong.”
“Oh, good.” Sasha seated herself at the table, her back to the window and the light. She opened the cookie container, took out a cookie and gave the dog a piece. “I talked to Roberta as well, on the phone, for ages. She’s put Erik in the spare room for now. He won’t be there for long. She’s figuring out how to forgive him, I can hear it, the way she’s talking. But for now she says he’s home because she wants to stay on the farm.”
“Well, that’s true, isn’t it?” Margo brought over mugs and a jug of milk.
“Yeah, but it’s only half of it. She’s nuts about him, I tell you. He’ll be back in her bed in no time.”
Sasha affected to be finished with men. She had been married twice and had had several other relationships. Now she proclaimed that she was an independent woman and being single suited her just fine. Margo didn’t believe a word of it. She brought the coffee to the table and helped herself to a cookie.
“These are okay.”
“Okay? They’re fantastic, aren’t they, Bob? You haven’t asked me if Phyllis is still mad at you.”
“Is she?”
“Yep. All of us, not just you. Says we’re always sticking our noses into everyone else’s business, that’s what she hates about small towns. No privacy. Well, I said, that’s the price you pay for us taking an interest, Phyllis. We look out for each other. We’ve got each other’s backs. That shut her up.”
“No word about George yet?”
“Nothing. She’s not getting to go to Boston. The RCMP called her and told her she can’t leave the country, needs to let them know if she’s going anywhere. Wonder who told them that she was thinking about going? Bet it was Panda.”
“Has Phyllis figured that out for herself yet?”
“Probably. She’s talking about selling the house and getting a condo in the city but she’s not allowed to do that either. Or get rid of George’s clothes. She’s got them all boxed up ready to go to the Goodwill.”
“So she’s going to have to stay out here for now?”
“Sounds like it. She’s got plans for George’s home drug lab. ‘One good thing, the RCMP cleared that all out for me,’ she said. ‘I might make it into a photography studio for myself.’ We talked colours. She’s going to pick up some paint chips tomorrow and I’m going to help her decide.” Margo looked out the window, over the white expanse of the lake, streaked with blue shadows.
“It cracked last night,” she said. “Sounded like a pistol shot.”
“The lake?”
“Way out there.” The lake water shifted and moved under the surface of the ice. Sometimes it caused a crack, a fissure that formed a ledge when it refroze. “It was a really loud bang. Look at it, all white and blue and perfect, but it’s not, is it? It’s full of cracks, where the ice has split and it’s frozen together again. It’s not perfect at all.”
“Hey, it’s February. Another month and it’ll start to melt. Don’t you like when it breaks up and you can hear all the little bits of ice banging up against each other around the edges? When it makes that tinkly sound, like little bells? I love that. And then it’ll be summer and we can swim and eat ice cream.”
Margo wasn’t convinced. “I have a feeling this is all going to get worse before it gets better.” Sasha passed her the cookies again.
“But it will. Right? It has to get better.”
Mo Penner leaned back in her chair in the interview room looking bored. She seemed quite familiar with police protocol. Her sparky chat was gone. Now she was sullen.
“You don’t need to keep Keenan.”
“We’ll talk to him after we talk to you, if we have to. How long have you known Leo Isbister?”
“Dunno.”
“Yes, you do. Where did you meet him?”
Silence.
“Did you get in touch with him or was it the other way round?”
Mo slammed her booted feet onto the ground and glared at Roxanne. “None of your fuckin’ business.”
“Oh, yes it is. Think about it, Mo. You’re probably Stella Magnusson’s heir. No one stands to benefit from her death more than you. So did you and your boyfriend come out here and kill her so you would get her house and her money?”
“There’s money?” Her look challenged Roxanne across the table.
“Might be. Do we need to go and ask Leo Isbister what he was talking to you about?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with her murder. Didn’t even know she was dead until yesterday.”
“How come? It’s been all over the news, TV.”
“Don’t pay much attention to that stuff.”
“So Leo told you?”
Mo’s eyelids flickered. She sat up and hauled a booted foot up onto her chair. She was wearing a sleeveless tunic over a long-sleeved sweater and leggings under her coat.
“Can I take off my boots?”
“Not here.” Roxanne tried to ignore the distraction. Mo was acting more like a teenager than a woman of twenty-nine. Was this arrested development? A reaction to stress? “Tell me about Leo. Sooner we’re done, sooner you can go.”
Mo put the foot down and stretched both legs out in front of her.
“I thought he might be my dad,” she said.
“Leo?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not? Once I knew that Stella was my mom I tried to find out everything about her. Do you know she was once married to Freddie Santana? The filmmaker? Long time after she had me. He’s not my dad. Anyway, I found out she was in this band, there’s some old tapes of them on YouTube, and I figured out she must have known them round about the time she had me, and her and Leo, they looked like they had something going on, so I found out who he was and I showed up on his doorstep one night. Have you seen where he lives? On the riverbank? In Winnipeg? It’s huge!”
“You went to his house?”
“Sure. Keenan drove me there and waited in the car. His wife didn’t look very pleased to see me, but Leo was cool about it. Told me to come to his office the next morning. I really hoped he would be my dad but he isn’t. How come you know he told me that she was dead?”
“Because he didn’t know about it either until a couple of days ago. He was away in Costa Rica.”
“He’s got another house there. I’ve seen photos. I’d like to go there someday. And a cottage out here. Anyway, he phoned me yesterday, to tell me he was sorry about my mom. And Keenan and me, we talked about it and we figured we should come out here and tell you who I am, because you should know. So see, we did the right thing and what do we get for it? Shut up here in jail, being grilled by you, accused of murder.”
Roxanne sat back. She might as well let Mo go for now. She had no grounds to hold her.
“Where are you going to be staying tonight, Mo? Do you have an address?”
“No. Ask Keenan. He’s got friends out here. Want my phone number?”
“And your email. And your address in the city. Do you have a job?”
“I work in a pet store. I’ll give you that address too. I’ve got a shift tomorrow night, it’s late closing. Can I go now?”
“If we need to know more I’ll be in touch.” Roxanne stood up. Mo was already halfway to the door. She stopped and turned.
“Hey, you don’t know a guy called Erik Axelsson, do you?”
“Yes,” said Roxanne. “I do. He lives near here. Why do you ask?”
“Well,” said Mo, “Leo told me yesterday that that’s my dad’s name. Erik Axelsson.”
It didn’t take long for Mo and Keenan to escape the office. They sauntered out to their old, once-red car, hand in hand.
“You gave her directions to Axelsson’s farm?” Roxanne said to Sergeant Gilchrist as they watched them go.
“Sure, I did. Everybody around here knows where Erik lives. Someone else would have told them.”
There was a burst of music, loud and metal, from upstairs. Izzy had found Stella and Leo’s band on YouTube. Roxanne turned back from the window.
“So,” said Gilchrist, “Erik was messing about with Stella Magnusson back when she was still in high school and Leo Isbister knew all about it?”
“That’s the story. We’d better let Brian know. He’s in the city. He can go talk to Isbister.”
Kathy Isfeld glanced up from tabulating figures on a calculator. “Don’t need to,” she said, in her quiet, whispery voice. “You can catch him here tomorrow. He’s got a meeting with the town planning committee tomorrow afternoon. Want me to get you an agenda? You could pick him up right after.”